Tuesday, January 15, 2013

I have been on google for an hour trying to find the difference between a florentine and a lacey cookie.No real luck as of yet. It seems these two are pretty much the same cookie with varying degrees of crispiness and varying quantities of flour? and maybe a special little zing from some orange or lemon zest? Regardless, the cookies I made here were delicious and so simple.If you're going to add a new cookie recipe to your repertoire this year, please, give these a go.

mix together the toasted almonds, 1/4 cup of flour and the orange zest.

mix well.

set aside.

in the pot on the stove,

toss in the sugar, butter,light corn syrup, cream and a dash or two of salt.

cook on medium heat until mixture begins to boil.

stir occasionally.

remove from the heat and slowly stir in the dry mixture.

mix well.

onto the baking sheets, place 6 dollops on each sheet - each dollop about a tablespoon worth.

note: i know this looks like an unbelievable waste of space - but these cookies spread so much that if you make these piles any bigger you will only have one massive florentine - instead of the pretty little small disks.

flatten each little pile as best you can - try to get all the almonds to lay flat.

another note: you will need to work fairly quickly because the mixture begins to thicken and set making flattening them a bit of a challenge.

you can do two trays per oven of you have the space.

cook 5 minutes then rotate the trays and cook another 6 minutes.

let these bake until they are a beautiful, darkish, amber color.

cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack.

the wire rack is the best way to get those beautiful drizzle lines without the long little pieces of chocolate hanging off the edges of all the cookies.

drizzle with melted chocolate or chocolate ganache.

another note: the best way i have found to do this is with a fork - dip the fork into the melted chocolate then swing it back and forth over the tops of the cookies.